Remember, we've been looking
at the I am's of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said in his personal
ministry, in the book of John, seven different times, he mentioned
that he was the I am. And in the book of John, he said,
I am the bread of life. And we looked at that, how bread
is important to us, but as physical bread is not near as important.
as spiritual bread that the Lord Jesus Christ alone gives. We
looked at he's the light of the world. Jesus said, I am the light
of the world. You know, we have a lot of sunlight
today, but when it comes to real light that shines in our heart,
it comes from the Lord Jesus Christ alone. He's the only one
that can illuminate us to spiritual truth. He's the only one that
can reveal himself to us. I am the door of the sheep. And
it not only is security, but it keeps the enemy away and it
protects us. So he's the door to the sheepfold.
He's the one that protects his sheep. He's the shepherd that
does that. In fact, he said, I am the good
shepherd. And the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
That's what he said about himself. I am the good shepherd. And then
he said, I am the resurrection and the life. And it is only
in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ to raise anybody from
the dead. Now, the most serious death that
we have in this world right now The most serious is spiritual
death. We died in Adam, and it was a
horrific death. It carried us so far away from
God that we don't recognize him when we even hear about him.
He must be revealed to us. So he is the resurrection and
the life, and then he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. So everything that we have must
agree with the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the way. He is the only
way. He is the truth. He is the only truth. And he
is the life. He is the only life. Spiritual
life. And then today we'd like to look
at the last one that he mentioned and that is, I am the true vine. I am the true vine. Now we started
our study on this subject when we went over to the book of Genesis,
excuse me, Exodus chapter three. In the book of Exodus chapter
three, one of the servants of God, we know him as Moses, one
of the servants of God was out in the backside of the desert
herding sheep for his father-in-law. And he saw a sight that got his
attention. And that sight was a bush. that
was a fire but it would not be consumed. Now I've had a lot
of people laugh about that. They say, that just can't happen.
Well, with God, nothing is impossible. So he looked at that bush and
he saw the fire and it wasn't being consumed. And in his mind,
he said, I will go over and look at this and see what it is. Now,
who brought that fire? We know, God. Why did he bring
it at this time? Because that's when he wanted
to meet his servant. Everything about this was purposed
by Almighty God before the foundation of the world. He met his servant
there, his name was Moses, and Moses was to go back to Egypt. Now he had been born down in
Egypt as a slave, and when he was very young, he was put in
a little ark in the Nile River to keep him because the king
had said, we're going to kill all the male children. Moses'
parents said, he's a proper child. You know what they knew? This
is an important child. This is the promised child to
deliver us from Egypt. It's more than just being a good
looking baby. And it was more than him just
being born into their family. He had a very significant revelation
from God that this boy must be protected. Well, they took him
and put him in the Nile River in that little baby ark. And
nobody that we could think of would come along. And yet God
purposed that Pharaoh's daughter come along and find him and raise
him. Now he got into a little trouble
and he had to run away, but God was going to take care of his
people, Israel, through this man. Now, when it came time for
Moses to be going down to Egypt and leading the children of Israel
out, he said, when I go down there, what name shall I tell
them sent me? And God said, you tell them,
I am that I am. Now we hear a lot of strange
names in our world today, But that is a strange name, but it
is most significant. I am that I am. And that is the
significance is that God depends on nobody or anything for his
survival. He is God. absolute, total, sovereign,
king, God. So he is the God and he says,
you tell those people down there, I am that I am. Well, I find
it very significant that in time, the son of God comes and he uses
that very same term to describe himself. To me, he is telling
us that he is the one that met Moses there in the burning bush. I loved an outline. The pastor
who brought me the gospel left me this outline with regard to
the whole Bible. I just love it. I use it a lot.
The Old Testament tells us that someone is coming. The whole
Old Testament. Someone is coming. Messiah is
coming. A deliverer is coming. A prophet
is coming. A king is coming. Everything that is written tells
us that someone's coming. Book of Matthew and Luke tell
us someone is here. Now, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John tell about the same account. Someone is here. The Son of God
is here. He's on this earth. And in his
purpose, he is going to go to the cross and ransom his people
or pay the sin debt that they owe. So someone is here during
the Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. After the Lord came out
of the tomb successful over sin, death, and hell in the grave,
He went back to the Father because now He is there making intercession
for His people, but He also shares with us He was absolutely successful
when He went to the cross. He didn't miss the mark. He was
absolutely successful. He was the only one that could
be successful in redeeming His people from their sins. He is
God. He is God. God in human flesh. Now I can't understand that,
but you know what? I can understand the process
of human birth. I can't understand how you can
plant a little pea in the ground and a bush this big comes out
and has more peas on it. You explain that to me. But this
is so, it's a miracle that he came born of a virgin and laid
down his life of ransom for many. Well, from the book of Acts to
the book of Revelation, the promise is, Jesus said, I will come back
and I will receive my own to myself. So here we have the outline. Well, Jesus said, and as we mentioned
that, I am the true vine, and that's found in John chapter
15, verses one through five. I'm gonna read those verses.
It's mentioned twice in those readings, verses, verse one and
verse five tell us that Jesus Christ himself said, I am the
true vine. I am the true vine. Verse one,
I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman. That's another
way of saying he's the gardener. All right, every branch in me
that beareth not fruit, he taketh away and every branch that beareth
fruit, he purges it that it might be bring forth more fruit. Now
in that verse two, it talks about branches that don't bear any
fruit. They're just kind of leaning up against the vine. because
the vine has promised to produce fruit. They're just kind of leaning
up there. It's a whole lot like I was before
the Lord saved me. I was in religion and I was trying
to get close to God and close to salvation, but I had no knowledge
of what it was. But he goes on to tell us, that
every branch that beareth fruit, he purchased it, that it may
bring forth more fruit. So his interest is in his people
bearing fruit. Now the Bible tells us what that
fruit is. Galatians chapter five says the fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.
Without such, there is no law against it. We will never find
anybody arrested for being peaceful. All right, so I am the true vine,
and that word true means there it's the opposite. I'm just going
to bring some opposites, some anonyms for the word truth. It's
not fictitious. He is not a fictitious vine. He is not a counterfeit. He is
the true vine. He's not fictitious. He is not
counterfeit. He's not imaginary. He is He's
not pretended to be the vine. He is the vine. I am the true
vine. And this vine that we find with
regard to the Lord Jesus Christ is not like the vines, the grape
vines that we run across in our life today. You know, I wish
we didn't have weeds, but we do. And they are a plague if you're
gonna have a farm or a garden. They're always there. We water
the vine, we're gonna get some weeds. Do you know that when
we talk about this vine, the Lord Jesus Christ, he has no
weeds around him or in him. He is the perfect son of God. The natural vines are affected
with disease. We spray, we do all kinds of
things, certain diseases, we have to take the whole batch
out. But this vine has no disease. In fact, he is the perfect son
of God. There is no imperfection in him. He has no sin in him. He never
thought a bad thought and never did a bad thing. He was perfect
in every way. And that's why he could go to
the cross and have our sin imputed to him and pay the price. And then he could impute his
righteousness to us and we could go free. He is perfect. There is no disease in him. You
know, we may have a time of drought. Right now, if you don't have
some irrigation systems on some of our crops, you're not going
to have a crop. Well, he is not affected by drought. He has perfect and complete irrigation
system in himself, and he passes that on to the church. He has
every attribute and every characteristic, every blessing of the Lord Jesus
Christ has passed on to the church. They're not in a drought time.
Now we may have a troublous time, but we're not in a drought time
because he continues to give us his nourishment. His word
is our food. There may be a time of flooding.
I can't imagine what went on down there in Texas and just
happened again today. Flooding, you know, a river rises
25 feet in less than 15 minutes. The perilous times that they're
having down there. Well, with Jesus Christ, he never
had a flood in time. He is so secure. so purposeful
that he carries out everything he ever intends to do. He has
not thwarted, he has not moved from his position, he's not changed. He said, I change not. I had some tomato vines last
year and they were beautiful. And they were loaded with tomatoes. And I was going to pick them
the next day. They were just at that point. I was going to
pick them the next day and I got up to pick them because my wife
loves them. And I went out there and there
wasn't one tomato left. The deer came and had a feast. They ate every one of those tomatoes
and they ate the tomato vines almost down to the ground. You
know, when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ, as I am the vine,
he never has anybody that can do anything to make him less
than he is. They cannot steal his fruit.
They cannot steal him. They cannot make fun of him.
He continues to be as he is. Nobody can steal this vine. No deer can eat this vine. It
is the, I am the true vine. And it goes on in the book of
John chapter 15. Now you are clean through the
word, which I've spoken unto you. Verse four, abide in me
and I in you as a branch cannot bear fruit in itself. Go down
to a, grapevine, you got some branches coming out, you take
that off of the vine, and it doesn't last. We need that food,
we need that sustenance, just as a vine does. And accept it,
abide in the vine. No more can ye accept ye abide
in me, I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth
in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. And
then he concludes by saying, for without me ye can do nothing. So what a statement the Lord
shares with us with regard to himself as being the true vine. I am the true vine. I am God. I came to this sin-cursed earth
with the purpose of delivering my people from their sins. And
as a result of that, I will describe myself in a number of different
ways to give you a little bit of insight on what and who I
am. I am. the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the door of the sheep. I
am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the
life. I am the way the truth and the
life and I am the true vine. Now there's a verse of scripture
that I also want to look at, and that's found in John 6, verse
63. And with this, we'll close today.
John 6, verse 63, as we think of the Lord Jesus describing
himself as a vine, I am the true vine. Lot of imitation vines,
but he is the true vine. Lot of imitation ways, but he
is the true way. Lot of imitation life, but he
is the only life. And here it tells us, In the
book of John chapter six, it is the spirit that quickeneth.
That word quicken means to be made alive. It is the spirit
that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. You know, it really
took something for me to get a hold of that verse of scripture.
Because we're taught from our youth up that if we work hard
enough, we'll be okay. And Jesus Christ tells us in
his own simple, plain words, the flesh profiteth nothing. And then he goes on to tell us
the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are
life. It is the spirit of God that
quickeneth or gives life. So we need that. So desperately,
we need that. And we need to have that knowledge
that Jesus Christ is the true vine. Thank you once again for
allowing us to be here.